GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem's frighteningly fruitless drop-box follies

Reports of pseudo stormtroopers “monitoring” ballot drop boxes in Maricopa County would be a joke if it wasn’t dangerous.

Wait … I take that back.

It is a joke.

And also dangerous.

This makes sense since “dangerous joke” perfectly describes the politician egging on the feckless vigilantes – Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem.

Finchem is an election-denying conspiracy crank, as well as a member of the Oath Keepers, several of whom are on trial for seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Finchem was in Washington, D.C., that day.

Finchem stirs the pot of paranoia

Lately he has been urging his gullibly paranoid supporters to lurk around the sites of election ballot drop boxes, saying in one tweet, “Soros does not want people to watch their shenanigans. We must watch all drop boxes … .”

Finchem, like many Trump zombies, will on occasion drop antisemitic tropes into comments, in this case using the name of prominent Hungarian-born Jewish American businessman George Soros.

It’s more fascist than fanciful.

County officials: Please stop photographing election staff, voters

Even Finchem must know, however, that there is no way his minions would observe “all drop boxes.”

For one thing, there are a bunch of them.

Also, voters can use regular postal mailboxes or visit the post office to send in their ballots.

Given that, it’s clear Finchem isn’t trying to increase election security with his little stunt. He’s trying to ramp up distrust and anxiety among voters in order to feed his own conspiratorial delusions.

It's a game that could get someone killed

It’s a dangerous game.

As Finchem’s opponent in the secretary of state race, Adrian Fontes, tweeted:

“To the thugs terrorizing people at dropboxes with masks, with weapons: You’re not Batman. You’re not heroes. You’re anti-American bullies who are breaking the law and intimidating voters based on a lie. Someone is going to get killed.”

News reports suggest that Finchem’s fanatics, some of them armed, have mostly been prowling around the downtown election centers in Phoenix and Mesa.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office have received complaints about attempted voter intimidation.

But don’t fret.

There are plenty of other drop boxes around the county.

See what professionalism looks like

Or you can simply do what I did and deposit your completed and signed ballot in a regular mailbox.

Dedicated experts like current County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, and his predecessor, Fontes, a Democrat, have organized and maintained a system that assures efficient, transparent, verified election security.

No paranoia, just professionalism.

A day after I mailed my ballot I received a notice from Maricopa County saying it had been received.

A day after that I was notified that my signature had been checked and verified.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mark Finchem's ballot drop-box monitoring is frighteningly fruitless